Kindle 3’s WebKit browser squares off against the Kindle 2

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Sure, we all love the new Kindle 3’s dramatically lower price tag, smaller chassis and brighter e-ink display, but one big evolution that has tended to be overlooked by users is that the Kindle 3 also has a hot new Webkit-based browser, replacing the terrible, text-only “experimental” browser of previous versions.

How great is the new browser? It’s really great. Not Mobile Safari or anything, but better and quicker than you’d possibly expect an e-reader browser to be. As you can see in the showdown video above, pitting a Kindle 2 and Kindle 3 against each other, the Kindle 3 just obliterates the competition with image support, faster load times and desktop-like rendering.

That’s not the only area where the Kindle 3 shines. There’s also an impressive new Article mode, which is similar to Apple’s new Safari Reader function, stripping out images, banners and other in-page elements, leaving just the words you want to read. It’s not perfect, but it works, and makes reading long web articles on the Kindle 3 much more e-book like.